


Where Silence Sits to Listen to the Stars

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Identity Porn, M/M, Secret Identity, iron man's identity is still a secret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-20 02:22:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3633135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He loved Tony, of course, there was absolutely no denying that. It just so happened that he also had feelings for a certain Iron Man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Silence Sits to Listen to the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> This has been written thousands of times before, but oh well.  
> Takes place during the first Avengers movie, but doesn't comply with the actual plot.  
> Also, huge hugs for my beta reader Radiant_Queen, thank you so much for reading over this!
> 
> Warning for mild violence in the beginning.

Everything was going smoothly up until that point.

The strategy was simple enough: he, Nat, and Clint would take the ground; everyone else, the air. As soon as they’d dropped out of the Quinjet, it had been easy pickings. A quick strike to the left, a kick to the right, and the enemy was swiftly dispatched. _They may be aliens, but their combat style isn’t unique at all._ Natasha’s all over the place with a spear-gun she snagged from a Chitauri soldier. Clint’s on top of the highest building in the vicinity, shooting arrows with surefire accuracy.

It’s exhaustion that finally drives them to the edge, though. Steve doesn’t know how many times he’s swung his shield to dislocate an arm or tear off a weapon - he just knows the familiar ache of his body when it’s been pushed to the very limit. And no matter how many times he does it, there’s more.

Leaning against the burned remains of a taxi, Steve allows himself to catch his breath. The chaos and noise surrounding him is muffled, blocked out by the haze of adrenaline. His wounds hum with a dull pain. He’s been separated from Natasha, and the mic in his ear is gone, probably let loose by a random blow.

A fresh wave of screams signals the approach of more Chitauri. Steve gets up, running in the direction of the sound.

Almost immediately, he’s ambushed by a dozen foot soldiers, weapons aimed high, teeth clacking in their helmets. Steve’s boot connects with a jaw before he feels a sudden, wrenching sensation in his gut. It takes him a few seconds to register the blade protruding from his stomach, blood already beginning to stain his uniform.

His vision’s blotted now, little black flecks dancing in the corners of his eyes. A feeling, something he hasn’t felt in a long time, begins throbbing in the back of his brain - it’s that desperate, bare-bones desire to survive, to live.

There’s a motion towards his hip as a strong hand reaches over to support his weight. At first, he fears for the worst (he’s dead, he must be dead, and he’s being taken to the other side), but the grip is familiar, and Steve smiles in spite of himself.

 -

Steve wakes up to pressure against his stab wound and gleaming red-and-gold metal. There’s a enormous rush of relief, and he lets out a small shuddering sigh.

“You were out for a little while there, Cap.” The voice is warped, made to sound deeper and more robotic, but the tone is incredibly human. “Started to get a little worried.”

Steve coughs out, “My bad.”

Iron Man just nods, but there’s something suppressed about it. Then again, it’s hard to read the emotions of a man who wears an impenetrable suit of armor all the time.

The paint’s scratched up, and there’s scorch marks covering half of its face, but the machine still whirs and drones beautifully, and Steve wonders - not for the first time - how humans could have made such a thing.

It was a shame he’d never be able to see the man underneath.

-

The fight’s over almost too soon. Thor and Banner have finished off the last few aliens wandering around causing havoc. Steve was promptly carted off to SHIELD headquarters, even though he insisted otherwise. Unfortunately, Nick Fury was more demanding. Now he was locked inside of a tiny medical room, waiting for more news from the field.

Every so often, doctors come in to check up on him, but Steve waves off every single one. He’s just about ready to tell the next one to piss off before he realizes the person opening the door is Tony.

“Shit,” he mutters, ambling over to Steve’s bed. “I saw the footage, are you alright?”

Steve emits a small grunt. “I’m fine, but SHIELD doesn’t seem to think so.”

Tony laughs softly (it’s a wonderful laugh, the kind that makes his stomach flutter every time) before pressing his lips against Steve’s. He takes in the kiss, enjoying the faint scent of cologne and sweat that accompanies it.

Steve’s eyes flicker towards the bruises adorning Tony’s cheekbone before breaking from the embrace. “What happened there?”

“Nothing, just a boxing mishap with Happy,” Tony replies a little too quickly. “You, on the other hand, had Chitauri metal in your gut.”

“For the last time, I’m perfectly fine,” Steve says. “It won't take long to heal.”

Tony’s response is drowned out by Steve’s train of thought, as he begins to focus on the dark splotches of color on the other man’s cheek.

They’re fresh.

* * *

 The first time Steve meets Iron Man, he feels like a kid again.

He can’t help but stare in awe as the suit cuts through the air like it’s nothing, with a grace he’s never seen in any airplane - or machine, for that matter. The repulsors fire off on a whim, the suit rearranging itself to match the pilot’s turns and dives. It was beautiful. Frighteningly so.

After Steve sees Iron Man in action a couple of times, he asks Fury for his identity - because for some reason, people prefer to return that cold, mechanized stare rather than ask about the man inside. He’s met with a brisk “that, Captain, is a state secret”.

That doesn’t stop him from coming up with theories.

- 

Tony Stark, on the other hand, begins as a curiosity. The man was stubborn as a mule - and frustratingly gorgeous - but brilliant, he’d give him that.

It starts off with Tony being an advisor for SHIELD: the person you’d go to when equipment malfunctioned, or a new project was underway. Really, he’s only supposed to be offering opinions and input for new tech, but Steve finds him in dirty tanktops streaked with engine grease more often than not.

It picks up soon after. Steve finds himself seeing Tony around more and more - he even watched him work in the lab a couple of times, leaning against the doorway while the engineer ranted about thermonuclear dynamics to him. Maybe it was those little moments that contributed to Steve’s overall attraction towards him: where Tony would complain that, if he had access to the designs, he’d make a Captain America suit ten times better than what Steve had now; or how SHIELD was oppressive and tyrannical for not letting him test things on the Hulk.

It didn’t take too long before they started going on dates. There were those long kisses in Central Park and quiet lunches together in the workshop. If Tony wasn’t at his mansion or SHIELD headquarters, he was at Steve’s apartment.

He loved Tony, of course, there was absolutely no denying that. It just so happened that he also had feelings for a certain Iron Man.

He’d tried to brush it off initially as something dumb and childish - how could you possibly have feelings for someone you’d never even met? And yet, as he told himself this, his heart still jumped whenever the suit dropped down onto the battlefield with a thump and a salute in Steve’s direction.

Hug-and-flies were even worse, and it didn’t help that, whenever Iron Man so much as brushed by him (Steve _refused_ to believe any of them were intentional), a jolt of exhilaration as intense as any of Tony’s touches or kisses rushed down his spine.

In summary, the amount of guilt Steve felt towards his current situation was too large to even contain, and it was only growing larger. He’d considered every possibility around it, thought maybe if he just ignored it, the problem would disappear. He’d even confronted Fury about Tony’s involvement with the Iron Man project. It made sense; Tony was a scientist for SHIELD, after all, he almost definitely had had something to do with it.

“What does Tony have to do with Iron Man?”

The question caught Fury off guard, but the steely glare quickly returned. “What -”

“I’m not stupid,” Steve had said. “He’s your head engineer, whether his resume says it or not. Clearly he has something to do with him.”

Fury’s mouth contorted a little in subdued rage, but he does finally provide Steve with an answer. “Yes, Stark was primarily responsible for creating the armor. Did everything from logistics to funding to actually building the damn thing.” There’s a pause before he added, “He doesn’t fly the suit, he only made it.”

Fury left before Steve can even formulate a reply, coat swishing with a curt finality. It’s safe to say he leaves it at that.

* * *

 But enough is enough, he tells himself as he hurries downstairs, toward the labs. The wound in his stomach aches distantly, cleaned and bandaged under his shirt, but he doesn’t care. It all adds up: Tony’s matching bruises to the Iron Man mask; his silence when it came to the Iron Man suit (and Tony _always_ commented on anything remotely mechanic); his involvement in the entire operation.

 _This is all some stupid coping mechanism you’re making for yourself, Rogers_ , a darker part of his brain says, but Steve just pushes it away.

He finds Tony examining some kind of robotic arm, half-slumped over his table. He looks weary and completely exhausted, but Steve's inner drive gets the better of him.

“You’re him, aren’t you?”

Tony swings his head in the direction of the noise, the tension from before still not leaving his body. Steve almost winces at that. “What?”

“You’re Iron Man.” His mind is screaming in protest, but he continues. “You're the one who was in the suit. All those times you helped me up - it was you.”

Tony opens his mouth like he’s going to protest, but he doesn’t, just sighs loudly in submission. “Yeah.”

“You couldn’t tell me?”

“Fury said if Iron Man’s identity was made public, there would be issues,” Tony says. “Interest from foreign parties or something like that...”

And of course Steve’s pissed. Pissed that he didn’t tell him (though that couldn’t have been helped); pissed about Fury keeping this fact away from everyone. It’ll change everything, and Steve sure as hell isn’t going to look at Iron Man's mask the same way again, knowing it's Tony who's behind it.

But there’s relief there, as well, flooding his mind and overpowering everything else. Because now he won’t have to tear himself up from the inside out; he’s no longer in that constant state of confusion and self-doubt.

Tony takes Steve’s hand into his. “I’m sorry, Steve. I should’ve told you regardless.” Steve returns the gesture, squeezing lightly against Tony’s knuckles.

They stand there in silence, just listening to the whirring of Tony’s - and Iron Man’s - heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the poem "Cupid and Psyche" by T.K. Harvey. *wink wonk*


End file.
